General indications which relate to the laws of organic life / by Daniel Pring.

  • Pring, Daniel, 1789-1859.
Date:
1819
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General indications which relate to the laws of organic life / by Daniel Pring. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    arguments, which are also so related as to produce physically, in the common way of cause and elfect, partial convictions, or per- haps most commonly, belief mixed with doubt. The latter kind of evidence, viz. the means by which belief is produced, is nototo be considered. § 20. We gain the belief of an existence either by the imme- diate operation of an external object upon our senses, or by a process of our own minds: the strength of evidence must always be proportionate to the strength of belief In our examinations respecting the existence of things, our object is to improve our evi- dence, to substitute that which produces a certain for that which produces a doubtful conclusion. We can look for no higher satisfaction, with respect to things, than that we should possess with regard to them the most perfect belief; we can j>ropose to ourselves no higher object of investigation. § 21. It may be objected that universal scepticism must be a consequence of this doctrine: for if, it may be urged, there is no other testimony of the existence of externals, but our belief of such existence; and if the strongest belief is liable, perhaps in rare instances, to be superseded by a different one; how, ad- mitting this principle, can we feel assured of the reality of any thing beyond ourselves, or even of our own existence? I reply, such a doctrine does not lead to scepticism, but quite the reverse; we cannot help believing: and the negative reason why we believe is verv often because we cannot help it: we can no more help believing than we can help feeling: evidence is related with credibility just as the causes of sensation are with sensibility; the necessary efl'ect of the relation in one case is to produce unavoid- able belief, as it is in the otiier to produce unavoidable sensation. If the relation is frustrated, then indeed neither efiect takes place; and a certain belief is no more producible by certain evidence on a deranged understanding, than the usual sensations are producible by certain excitants in the seat of a modified or impaired sensibility. § 22. The modes by which we acquire a belief are three: by an imj)ression on the senses, by recollection, by inference. Belief, or truths, simply of memory, are not produced by a present im- pression upon the senses, or by analogy; they are merely ihe jecollection of former witnessings, and never produce belief of present existence. But the events or circumstances which are thus furnished by memory, may become the basis of an inference of a present existence. Thus it is a simple act of memory to inform me that my father was alive when I was last at his house, it is an inference that he is alive now; I recollect that he ivas alive, but I cannot recollect that he is alive, although I conclude it by a process in which this recollection is concerned. I do not think it necessary to say any more about the evidence of niemory, except that iii point of force it is, when clear and unequivocal, equal to that which produced the belief which memory renews, and which might have beentheresulteitherof anirapression on the senses or of an inference. D
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